Bucharest bound for Wales Away footie friendly against Romania.
Our first Wales Away trip since the passing of our long-time travelling companion, ‘Posh’. No doubt she will be on our minds a lot, especially as her husband ‘Becks’ is travelling with us.
When people leave us, we sometimes wonder what they would want us to do after they have gone. Posh did fifty five away games in forty five different countries. I don’t think there’s any doubt that she would have wanted us to carry on following Wales wherever we could and to not waste too much time being down – just remember the good times.
The trip is a mixed blessing. If it weren’t for a couple of missed penalties against Bosnia back in March, this could have been a warm up for another World Cup tournament. But in some ways it is a relief we are not going. In true FIFA style, no consideration was given to the fans when awarding the tournament to three huge countries spread over two different continents.
Successful teams, and their fans, will be clocking up ridiculous air miles shuttling between games in Canada, USA and Mexico. If that were not enough, the current regime in the USA means many fans and teams are not going to be welcomed with open arms. With Wales’ ‘potential’ first game in Canada, we would have made the effort. But with all other games in the USA we would have boycotted the rest of the tournament. And those who didn’t take that stance would’ve faced scandalous ticket prices on top of all the travelling.
So it’s something of a relief that we didn’t quite make the grade and are heading east instead. And let’s be honest, Bucharest sounds far more interesting than anything the US of A has to offer.
Without ‘Morgan Travel’, as Posh used to call herself, it fell to ‘Iguana Travel’ to sort things out. After much research, it looked like our best option was to fly from Birmingham with Ryan Air at stupid o’clock in the morning. Posh would never have put up with a 6am flight and we all share a mutual hatred of Ryan Air, but unfortunately it was the best option we could see.
There is one saving grace though. It does mean we will have most of the first day to explore this new city – assuming we can stay awake after leaving home at 1am.
I’ve never flown from Birmingham Airport before. Originally an RAF base during the Second Big War, it became a civilian airport in 1946. It’s the seventh largest airport in the UK and more than sixteen million passengers pass through its doors every year.
Ryan Air, along with Easy Jet, are my least favourite airlines. Whilst the initial prices look cheap, to even take a carry on case, you have to pay extra. We recently booked a trip to Northern Ireland with Easy Jet. The flight was only £27 but a carry on bag was £53. Makes my blood boil. Anyway, we are with Ryan Air for this flight. Bizarrely, ‘meet and greet’ valet parking was cheaper than ordinary parking – although they probably rent your car out to someone else while you’re away – or rob a bank or some such thing.
The drive to Birmingham in the middle of the night was remarkably painless, well, for those of us not actually driving.
It’s incredible how busy the airport is at three of the AMs. Presumably the ‘cheap’ flights with Ryan Air means thousands of people are prepared to forego sleep to take advantage. The departure lounge in ‘Spoons is rammed with twenty-four hour party people. Many of them Welsh. Wonky Sheep are also on our flight. We soon find ourselves drinking with Frank Carson and the Caerphilly Massive.
When packing I changed bags twice, and rethought how many pairs of pants I would need, due to rumours of Ryan Air’s legendary restrictions on baggage allowances.
As we start to board, we find out how true the rumours are. Becks gets stung for £60 because his bag is two inches deeper than is allowed (even though it’s two inches narrower than our cases). We definitely won’t be flying with them again.
Bucharest has a population of just over two million and is served by two international airports. After three hours of sitting in a space too small for anyone to get comfortable, we land at Henri Coandă International Airport. It is a mixed civil and military airport and handles seventeen-million passengers a year.
Public transport is very cheap and very efficient. We pay £1 to get a train into the city. It should be tap in with your card, but the tap in card reader isn’t working, so a guy comes around with a hand held tap in machine.
Thirty minutes later we are climbing off at Nord Station. A huge old station that looks like something out of an old spy movie. It has a very Soviet feel to it, although it was first opened in 1872. Apparently it has had numerous upgrades over the years but it still looks incredibly run down. The presence of seventies New York subway style graffiti doesn’t help.
It’s also a train spotters wet dream with modern high-speed trains rubbing shoulders with double-decker commuter trains and exotic looking beasts that have ‘East European’ written all over them.
It’s the largest station in Romania and you can travel to all points of the country from this hub. On 27th February 2022 the station welcomed 100,000 refugees from neighbouring Ukraine fleeing the advancing Russian Army.
During the twentieth century Romania was like Schrodinger’s Soviet. It wasn’t actually formally part of the Soviet Union, but it was a socialist republic and had incredibly strong ties with the USSR – including being in the Warsaw Pact – the Russian equivalent of NATO.
After World War Two the country was occupied by the Soviet Union, but in the 1960s they started to gain limited independence. Nicolae Ceaușescu emerged as the head of the communist party, becoming General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965, President of the State Council in 1967, and President of the Socialist Republic of Romania in 1974. Ceaușescu’s rule from 1965 to 1989 grew increasingly authoritarian during the 1980s.
In 1989 the Soviet Union was starting to fall apart. Likewise, in 1989 the Romanian people finally stood up, kicked over all the tables and shouted ‘up with this, we will not put’. Ceaușescu’s reign as Billy Big Bollocks was over. He was arrested on 22nd December & immediately put on trial. The trial didn’t last long. On Christmas morning, instead of waking up to a chocolate orange and new socks, him an his missus were put in front of a firing squad.
In 1990 Romania had its first open and democratic elections in yonks. They shuffled off the yoke of socialism and embraced capitalism – and began a new era of privatistion, corruption and recessions.
The Nord Station isn’t actually in the city-centre. We have the option of throwing ourselves into the bowels of the efficient and cheap Metro, or splashing out £4 for an Uber to our apartment. We opt for the Uber.
The first thing I note is that if you walk out onto a zebra crossing, unlike most east European cities, the traffic actually stops for you (don’t try just walking out on a Pelican Crossing though).
After twenty minutes of rush hour traffic, our driver is dropping us off and pointing to what he tells us is our apartment block. To be honest, it looks like a squat. Rough as fuck but made kinda cool by the graffiti. Our apartment isn’t ready yet, but we are pleased to see there’s a street full of bars and restaurants on our doorstep.
We settle down and tuck into a delicious feast in a Greek restaurant and ponder on the meaning of life.
Bellies full, we do a lap of our squat and it eventually dawns on us that our Uber driver’s pants were on fire. This is not where we are staying at all. We are on the other side of the river.
Where we are actually staying has the look of a former Soviet block of flats. It has far less graffiti on it, but to be honest, that makes it slightly less welcoming than the squat the other side of the river. It has seventeen floors. We are on floor four. However, for some reason the number four button is missing from the panel in the lift, so we go up to floor five and walk down the stairs, climbing over bags of cement.
Once finally in the apartment we notice two things. Firstly, it is significantly better than the rest of the building would suggest. Secondly, it’s not as nice as the photos on the website. In fact, checking the website, we are not convinced it is the same flat. Perhaps it has been burgled and they have stolen the kettle, toaster and microwave. And all the hot water.
I check out the TV and discover a bizarre channel that appears to be a quiz show based on differential calculus.
We decide to have a tactical kip. Many of the windows are open to allow fresh air, but half way through our siesta I’m woken by booming thunder so get up and close them all before it starts raining.
Eventually, batteries slightly recharged, and after a cold shower, we head back over the river to the old town.
The charming narrow medieval streets appear to be trying to break the world record for the most Irish Pubs in one street. They are everywhere. At one point we spot three of them next door to each other.
We walk down the street fighting off the waiters trying to drag us into their establishments and head for the Nomad ‘sky bar’ to meet some of the Wonky Wanderers.
There’s a lift to take us up to the heady hights of the second floor of the ‘sky bar’ and sure enough, we are soon sat drinking with Sue, Tracy and ‘he who shall not be tagged on social media’. Nobody is drinking on the roof garden, due to the aforementioned thunderstorm having turned into a sub-tropical rain storm. Nonetheless, I pop out to check out the views. That is, after all, what ‘sky bars’ are supposed to be for – panoramic views of the city. Given that this particular ‘sky bar’ is no taller than any of the surrounding buildings, all I am greeted with is a low-flying birds-eye view of an Irish pub and a ‘gentleman’s’ strip club. I return to my beer, underwhelmed by the view.
After several hours consuming alcoholic beverages we participate in the tried and tested ‘split the bill’ comedy routine that will be familiar to anyone who has sat through three hours of table service, drinking with people who started ordering drinks an hour before you.
We walk through the ancient streets, fighting off more waiters, and walk down a quieter, more civilised street. We happen upon Caru’ Cu Bere, a beautiful traditional beer hall whose ornate interior dates back to 1889. We don’t sit inside though, we sit outside under huge umbrellas and sample hearty local food. I have what is described as ‘Lady’s Stew’ which is far nicer than it’s name. A mushroom stew with Romanian polenta, which is apparently different to Italian polenta.
After an hour of savouring local delicacies and anecdotes about previous Wales Away trips we head back to base. En-route we spy several interesting but unidentified buildings that will probably be far more interesting when we have done tomorrow’s walking tour and are able to identify them.
At one point we stop to take photographs of what appears to be angels flying above a church, but is actually seagulls illuminated by the uplighers of the church.
Once back at base we decided to use a lift that does have a fourth floor button, and walk around the floor to get to our little home from home.